The present invention relates to security systems, and more particularly relates to custom video composites and use within video surveillance systems, automated methods and software application tools for video surveillance.
Video surveillance systems are known for use in a variety of applications for monitoring objects within an environment, e.g., a piece of baggage in an airport or a casino employee within a gambling establishment. Video surveillance has long been employed in the aviation industry to monitor the presence of individuals at key locations within an airport, such as at security gates, baggage area, parking garages, etc. Analog closed circuit television (CCTV) and more recently available digital, network-based video surveillance systems are employed to monitor and/or track individuals and objects, vehicles entering or leaving a building facility or security gate (entry/exit), individuals present within, entering/exiting a store, casino, office building, hospital, etc., or other known settings where the health and/or safety of the occupants may be of concern.
Video servers, or servers that provide video analytics functionality, may be included in a video surveillance system or network in order to process video provided by the network cameras. Video servers may be used in video management systems to operate upon analog CCTV video data, such operations including digitization, rasterization and processing by video analytics. Such video servers thereafter direct the video data streams to in-network or IP address locations. A single video server may network up to four analog cameras, converting the analog stream to frames of digital image data. Network or IP Cameras with on-board video analytics processing abilities shall be referred to herein as “smart IP cameras.” Smart IP cameras allow for video analytics to be performed at the source of video data acquisition, that is, at the camera.
Video analytics as used herein shall refer to functional operations performed on acquired video data by software or application programs that employ algorithms to detect and classify objects in a field of view. The phrase “network camera” as used herein includes any known video capture or image acquisition devices, including digital cameras, digital video recorders, analog CCTV cameras, etc. Digital network cameras perform many of the same functions performed by conventional analog CCTV cameras, but with greater functionality and reduced costs. Network cameras are typically interfaced directly into an Ethernet-based network at an Ethernet port through a video server (as mentioned above). Network camera video outputs may be viewed in their simplest form using a web browser at a PC (and PC monitor).
Video analytics are used in various video-monitoring systems to enhance the effectiveness of video monitoring for event and object detection. Video analytics include functions for implementing computer vision operations for monitoring and analyzing streaming video from video acquisition devices comprising a monitoring network. Known video analytics provide object-tracking features by which an object under surveillance is tracked or monitored by a camera. For example, based on the video monitoring, an alarm is generated if an object under surveillance at a fixed location is removed from the location, as seen by the acquired video or still images. Various entities are known that provide video analytics software application for video monitoring applications. For example, IOImage, Inc., provides video analytics solutions marketed Intelligent Video Appliances,™ that performs various security-monitoring functions. Several functions include intrusion detection by video surveillance, unattended baggage detection, stopped vehicle detection, and other video analytics functions such as autonomous person/vehicle tracking with pan/tilt/zoom (PZT).
US Patent Application No. 2006/0239645 (“the '645 application”), commonly owned and incorporated by reference in its entirety herein, discloses an enterprise video surveillance system that includes video analytics abilities. In particular, the surveillance system and operation disclosed and described in the '645 application includes the “packaging” of video sequences derived from network cameras based on user-specified events. A video analytics processing manager, or Digital Video Manager™ (“VM”), provides that portions of acquired video, e.g., acquired video sequences, are bound into a “package” containing the portion or event of interest captured by a network video camera. The packaged video sequences or events are transmitted by the VM to other processes for further analysis, or for viewing by external agents or operators at a central security system monitoring location. One example of a “packaged” video event might include a video clip containing facial images of an individual under surveillance, or the faces of all individuals entering/exiting a secure location. By packaging, the pertinent video of subjects or events under surveillance is readily accessible so that prompt security agent or operator action may be taken in response to monitored events, or monitored subject action.
A block diagram highlighting a network-based video management system 100 found in the '645 application is reproduced herein as FIG. 1. As shown in FIG. 1, video management system 100 employs a number of digital video system sensors (DVSS's) 110, that are electrically connected to a LAN, or WAN 120. Browsers or terminal stations 150, and user interfaces 160 (e.g., graphical user interfaces) are included and connected to the WAN/LAN 120 to allow user input and control of system functioning, e.g., controlling camera PTZ settings, ROI settings, image resolution, frame rate, etc. DVSS's 110 are described by the '645 application to include any known analog and digital alarm event acquisition or detection devices, e.g., tripwires, digital network cameras, analog CCTV cameras, acoustic sensors, motion sensors, etc., that detect alarm events and acquire alarm-event detection data. For example, a network camera may acquire sequences of video surveillance data for distribution throughout the system (100), e.g., to a central video monitoring location.
A video manager (VM) 170 is connected through LAN/WAN to a network server 140 to control DVSS and other system operations. DVSSs may be connected to the LAN/WAN structure 120 directly, through a host application software program 180, or both. Acquired video images are processed by the VM to task the appropriate appliance modules 190. If an alarm event is detected and video-captured, the VM 170 processes the alarm event and acquired video data, and provides processing results for operator access (e.g., viewing) at a user interface 160, or terminal monitor 195. Video images of the actions that trigger such events are optionally stored on a hard-drive, magnetic tape, or other storage medium (not shown in FIG. 1), allowing video replay.
Typically, such video surveillance systems include multiple video cameras located at multiple locations within a secured premises or perimeter. As such, operators or security personnel frequently monitor multiple views derived from multiple cameras. To do so efficiently, conventional video surveillance and security monitoring systems and applications use salvo views, which is a matrix or set of network camera views. The individual views, or viewing ports comprising the matrix or salvo view each comprise video data captured by a respective video or network camera. Typically, monitoring operators wish to monitor related regions within separate fields of view (FOVs) that are monitored by separate network cameras within a protected premises. As such, when an operator attempts to view an incident or detected alarm event across currently displayed camera views, he/she is forced to analyze every camera view in the salvo or matrix display.
So while conventional salvo or matrix view techniques for monitoring multiple FOVs may provide for viewing the video acquired at any one of the monitored FOVs, such systems and salvo operation falls short in other important monitoring tasks and operations. Known salvo or matrix view monitoring systems and application tools do not provide a single view port to monitor multiple regions of interests (ROIs) in a single contained view or viewing port. Intuitively, operators whose job it is to monitor video acquired of from network cameras with fixed FOVs can best determine which ROIs in particular FOVs are most important for monitoring, and are believed to be the best arbiters of which ROIs would most improve efficiency and effectiveness if provided in one composite video view or viewing port. What would be welcomed therefore, in the field of video monitoring and video surveillance systems is a video monitoring system, method and application software program that allow manual user input so that the operator can identify particular ROIs within streaming video or still shots acquired by cameras, e.g., PTZ-based cameras with presets, located to monitor particular FOVs within a secured premises, perimeter, etc.